The Center for Portuguese Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara was founded with an endowment from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation for the purpose of promoting and developing studies about the Portuguese speaking world in California and in the United States of America.

The Center provides support for teaching and degree programs and promotes the study of the literatures, language and cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world. Portuguese is spoken in Brazil (over 200 million speakers), Portugal (over 10 million speakers) and Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor and Macau (over 45 million speakers). Services and activities include awarding student scholarships and stipends; promoting Portuguese language classes; hosting colloquia; maintaining the Center library; and sponsoring publications.

The Center was created by a grant of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to sponsor students and activities related to the Portuguese speaking world. The Center has also received support from various institutions, among which the Instituto Camões, the Fundação Luso-Americana para o Desenvolvimento, the Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica e Tecnológica, the Comissão Nacional para a Comemoração dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, the Fundação Oriente, The União Portuguesa do Estado da Califórnia, the Luso-American Education Foundation, and from individuals and alumni.

The Santa Barbara Portuguese Studies is an online publication dedicated to the promotion of the literatures and cultures of the Portuguese speaking world. As a peer reviewed journal, it invites the submission of articles about literature, culture and interdisciplinary fields related to the Portuguese speaking world in the following languages: Portuguese, English, French, Italian and Spanish. The Santa Barbara Portuguese Studies is published by the Portuguese area of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Graduate Students

An important part of the Center's mission is to support Graduate Students and students in the Literatures and Cultures of the Portuguese speaking world. As such, the Center promotes not only acitivities, but unique opportunities for Graduate Students. The students in the Portuguese area receive important training in skills that will prepare them for their future careers not only in Academia, but also academic related fields. They fully participate, as junior associate editors in the preparation of the volumes of the digital journal of the Portuguese area, the Santa Barbara Portuguese Studies. As junior editors, they are involved in all stages of digital publication. They learn how to prepare manuscripts for publication and how to work in a peer reviewed journal.

As the Center for Portuguese Studies also helps in the convening and promotion for colloquia, invited talks and congresses, our students also acquire experience in those important areas of Academic life.